A Tiny Detail I Like About iOS8

iOS8 is a huge move forward in user experience, especially the continuity experience between iOS8 and Mac OS X Yosemite is a great win. For the ones who don’t know what I am talking about by saying “continuity experience”: it is the ability to continue working on your document no matter which machine you started with, either a mobile device or a Mac. And also answering phone call on your Mac and iPad is a big experience win (more details on Apple's site). 

The thing that I would like to point out in this post is rather different, it is iOS' spotlight, again! You may remember I criticized iOS7 for a single bad behavior which had frustrated me lots of time: Keeping the earlier search query when I open spotlight for second time. iOS8 came with a simple solution for that: Second time you open spotlight it sets the search expression selected so if you time something the earlier search goes away; and in case you want to continue from your earlier type you still can do.

I can hear you are saying I am focusing on a secondary thing but I assure you these tiny details can make your users like or dislike your product.

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Step 1. Search something, then select something or cancel the search

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Step 2. Drag the home screen for a second search, the text comes selected. You can type something else without need to clean the field, or you can use your earlier expression

First Opinion - An App for Your Health

Some applications has secret engagement weapons and takes over the control faster than others.  Yesterday I download tons of apps and swinging one from the other as usual.  I was downloading, diving deep, most probably giving my e-mail and filling the form fields.

As a user, before seeing how the app works writing my personal details -even it is a user name- is such a unnecessary task. In most cases I don't engage with the app and most of the times I delete it. 

With a marketing approach,  I know the importance of user engagement and catching them at the first sight. 

As a UX designer this is the part I think about it longer. Keeping users within your app but before that gaining their trust to give you the details of their life; e-mail right! 

I was talking about yesterday. I have downloaded my daily dose of apps and kept experiencing them. Most of them asked me the same credential questions and none of them surprised me to stay in the app before I created an account. But eventually one of them opened immediately and start working.  It was an health app and promised me to introduce a doctor to me for free and quick.

Question was how fast I could contact to a doctor?

Answer was once you open the app.

The only thing what you need to do is opening First Opinion app. It asks nothing. Neither your name nor your e-mail. No. It says you are contacting to your doctor. Than a big surprise is waiting you. They found a doctor for you and gives you the doctor's information.
It means that first they are giving you information that you need. Then they are asking who you are.

After this point you are giving your personal info without feeling uncomfortable. The explanation is simple: the value proposition of the app is crystal clear, indeed you know your doctor is waiting to answer your questions. 

As a human you are used to fill the forms in the doctor's office and again you used to do it every time when you visit a new doctor. Although giving your personal details is reflexively normal for the sake of health First Opinion app does better job for the users' experience. It is a HUGE PLUS!

If they asked you before performing, then this could made them just another app with usual, boring first-time interaction. App does not ask any info and excludes itself from the masses, in an other words, it catches you, you found yourself already engaged. 

So, congratulations First Opinion Team. I really liked your approach to users.  

Power of Constrainted Media: Low Entry Barrier

Twitter eats the world of news media with 140 characters. Vine becomes the serious video entertainment. Dribbble dominates the design portfolios. Snapchat brings limits in the video view time and becomes a serious threat for Facebook. What do all have in common? Constraints on the content generation and consumption.

It would sound like counter intuitive if we heart it five to ten years ago: constraints make more use of the product. Andrew Chen asks it as a "Why would it make a product more successful by forcing constraints on content creation? Isn’t more always better? Wouldn’t each of these products be better off by removing the constraints? And does every constraint work, or is it all arbitrary?" 

Modest convenient products outperform shiny complicated by significant margins. But does that mean we have to keep the design simple?  Theoretically no. But we have to admit that the best practices has the low entry barrier. 

Everything Gets Associated with Your Corporate Brand

There is an image circulating on Twitter. It is a photo of Facebook A/B testing on its loading icon on the splash screen. In A group the loading icon resembles Facebook's loading icon (on the left) and in B group the loading icon resembles iOS' loading icon (on the right).

Facebook A/B Testing Its iOS App's Loading Icon

There is an interesting find out of the test: If the loading is slow and the icon is the Facebook's own one (left) the user thinks that the slowness is because of Facebook's itself. On the other hand, if the user feels slowness and the icon is the iOS' one (right) user thinks that the slowness is due to her device. This leads us to the conclusion that "every single detail different from the masses attributes to your corporate identity".

Actually it is not new. In social psychology this is known as attribution bias:

"People constantly make attributions regarding the cause of their own and others’ behaviors; however, attributions do not always accurately mirror reality." [from Wikipedia]

Hence try to make the best design decisions in order not to hurt your brand.

Pttrns: More than 2100 Mobile User Interface Patterns for Design Inspirations

We, UX designers, need inspirations for the sections of the apps that we work on. And we know that majority of a new application's parts consists of similar patterns as in other applications, like signup, login, activity feed, search, share. Almost all UX designers check different applications before (re)designing an application part. This means downloading a lot of applications just to check some parts of the applications.

Pttrns.com is the solution for this repetitive checking task. There are more than 2100 mobile UI patterns grouped into 3 main categories (iPhone, iPad, iOS7) and bunch of subcategories (Activity Feeds, Maps, Logins etc.).

Pttrns.com for mobile app UI patterns

Top part of the left panel is dedicated to the broad category selection: iPhone, iPad and iOS7.

Top part of the left panel: main category selection

Bottom part of the left panel: subcategories under the main category

Bottom part of the left panel is dedicated to different subcategories under the main category you have selected. Let's say you are on designing settings section of a iPhone application and would like to check what other apps' settings sections look like. You click iPhone section then click the settings subsection on the panel. Then lots of applications' settings sections are listed in the same page.

Settings examples from different applications

One cool feature of pttrns is the magnifier when you hover your mouse on the images.

Hope pttrns.com accompany you in your current and next journeys of mobile application design.